Wheels!

“the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round"…now that I have that song stuck in your head, don’t worry you can thank me later!  Little man has fallen in love with anything that has wheels and “goes vroom” (as he says).  He loves fire trucks, tractors, trucks, trash truck, police, and he love air planes and helicopters too (yes I know those do not have wheels but according to him they still go “vroom”).  A friend of mine told me about a local neighborhood doing a “wheels at work”.  Basically the neighborhood has all kinds of “working wheels” in the street and the children can go see the big vehicles, get in them, push buttons, and play!  I could not wait to get my babies there.  I knew little man would think it was super cool and I had a feeling our dare devil baby girl would not be far behind him…and she wasn’t.

Their favorite is the trash truck, I think this is because we watch them a lot going down the road and picking up trash along the street.  They have always loved the trash truck until…

…they saw the SWAT truck. 

Little man didn’t really know how to act inside the truck.  He stood there and sat on the bench…while his sister…

explored!!  She was ALL OVER that SWAT truck.  She climbed in the front seat and tried to shoot the gun, thankfully little man yelled “no Sissy”…I’m kidding but seriously she was loving her some SWAT!

This truck I have never seen before.  It was a satiellite truck for FSU.  That’s about all I know of it because as soon as we saw it little man spotted this…

the FIRE TRUCK!!!  He loves fire trucks and firemen.  He thinks they are the neatest thing.  While he was standing next to the “big boot” for a picture they started up the truck so they could raise the latter…poor baby was scared to death when that truck started.  From that point on he was not sure about any of the vehicles…they were too big and too loud.

Watching the ladder “go up the sky”…he thought it was so neat how the ladder and fireman could go “up the sky” like the airplanes and helicopters do.

Then it was on to the vacuum truck.  Daddy demonstrated the napkin getting sucked up…little man and baby girl could have cared less!

Daddy spotted the hot rods so he had to show them off to little man…

while we spotted the ice cream!  Little man was so thoughtful to try to share with baby girl…

After we left the helicopter flew over and landed in the street.  Little man ran back towards the event yelling “I see helicopter”…so back we went to see the helicopter.

Although he wasn’t interested in getting too close.

Daddy and babygirl decided to get a up close view of the helicopter.

After we saw the wheels, we began our route for the parade of homes.  This has become a mother’s day/weekend tradition.  I think we have gone on the parade every year for the past eight years.  EW love it!  We get to go into new and remodeled homes throughout the area and get ideas for decorating, designing, and technology.  I look forward to it every spring and this year we would have two toddlers with us, who wouldn’t be looking forward to that!?  No worries, momma came prepared I have toys and snacks coming out my ears!

I was trying to keep the babies entertained by asking them to say cheese while we headed out to see more homes…it did not work too well. 

But I did get two cute pictures of them.

 

We had a great time at both events and I cannot wait to take the babies back to wheels next year.  And as always I look forward to next year’s parade of homes!

Herb Time

A few weeks back I took some herbs/veggies from momma’s garden.  She has a rockin’ garden every year.  I have never been a big herb/veggie fan, however recently I have been trying to cook different meals and use different spices/herbs that I am not familiar with.  After getting the plants from momma, I decided that I wanted some inside and some outside.  I wanted to put three of the most common herbs inside on my bar.  I found some mason jars, also at my momma’s, and thought they would make cute pots.

 

I have been trying to get the plants to look good before taking my pictures, however my inside plants are still pitiful!

This is my basil, garlic chives, and thyme.  They have doubled in size since bringing them home.

I also spray painted an old pot, also from mom’s, yellow.  Here we have my tomatoes, more garlic chives, and peppers. 

The inside plants, bless their hearts, still look terrible.  I am not sure what is going on with them.  I water them, move the from the bar to the window for sunlight, and even talk to them…yet the still are not doing well…I’m thinking the mason jar, as cute as they are, do not make good pots.

Another plant project I have been working on is my chives.  Did you know that you can put chives in water and they will grow?  I bought these chives almost four weeks ago and they are still growing and green and I have used them almost every meal since I bought them.  I LOVE chives and am so excited to find that they will continue to grow in water without soil…and they grow FAST!!!  I have found a few tips on growing chives that I wanted to share…

First thing, less water the better.  I found that the chives will start to rot if you put them in too much water.  I keep just enough water in the jar to cover the white part of the chives.

It seems to me that the more I cut and use, the faster they grow. 

CLEAN.  I have found that if you take the time to keep you chives clean the better.  I wash the jar and the chives, every couple of days.

As I wash the chives off in the sink, I pull the outer layer off and wash out the slime.  The chives start to get a slime build up on the outside and in the roots, so I have found a fast rinse really helps.

Look how pretty and shinny they look after a quick wash. 

The roots have to be trimmed as well, they will start to get so long that you will need to trim them back. 

I am so excited to have fresh herbs to cook with.  I love seasons and spices, but what I never realized is how much better they are fresh.  They seem to be easy, for the most part, to grow and they bring a nice green to your kitchen. 

 

I will continue to nurse my baby herbs and hopefully they will soon make a turn for the better!

Scrapbook Paper Flower

Friday night I was in need of a fast and fun craft project…thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law, I had the perfect one in mind.  I believe it was Thursday when she sent me a picture of a flower she made from scrapbook paper and glued on to a canvas.  She sent me to this blog and said that the tutorial was awesome.  I immediately started brainstorming ideas, I could use the scrap fabric I have laying around and use my cricut to cut the “leafs” and the mod podge it on to the canvas…I also thought about making it from buttons, somehow.  So Friday night after the babies went to bed and hubby was still gone, I got busy.  I opted out of using fabric in fear of screwing up my first try.  Now that I have got it down, for the most part, I may mix it up a bit on the next one.

After rounding up all my materials I got busy.  I did not have a paint that was close to what she used in her tutorial, so I took my black and white and mixed it until I was satisfied with the color.

The I began cutting.  At first I just eye balled everything, I should have measured and followed her tutorial exactly.  But I didn’t, mainly I thought that I would make this flower bigger than hers, but I did not realize that making the “leafs” bigger would not give me what I was looking for.  I needed more “leafs” not bigger ones.  So my tip to you, if you want a flower that covers the entire canvas, or close there to it, just make more “leafs” but keep them small.  I learned smaller “leafs” fill in the space better and I liked the way they turned out vs. the larger ones.  Everybody’s taste is different though so you may learn that you like the bigger “leafs” better.

 

I also used a yellow button as my center, I think she used a different color scrapbook paper for hers. 

Here she sits on our mantel for now.  I am not sure if she will stay there, more than likely not.  I don’t know if it is just me but my decorations have a way of moving, almost daily.  I move things around, change it up a bit here and there…it is the woman in me!

Here is a up-close picture.  I am really happy with how it turned out.  From far away it looks like a fancy piece of art, but I created it.  I have tossed around ideas or using left over fabric on my next one or pictures of the babies…I’m planning on making another one I just have to decide what I want it to look like. 

 

Thanks Its Doable for an awesome tutorial and a beautiful flower!

 

Hope you had a great weekend and a wonderful Mother’s Day!

PCB

This past weekend we went to visit my Mema and Pepa at the beach…they are living the life right!!  Everyday in perfect paradise, I pray daily this will be the life hubby and I can have when we retire.  I took many many pictures I hope you enjoy them.  This was the first real trip to the beach for the babies and they enjoyed every minute of it.  *Click on the image to make it bigger*

 

We enjoyed playing around the camp ground in addition to the beach.

As you can see, I get my love for photography naturally…we both are always with our camera.  Love it!

This is the view that my Mema and Pepa see every single day, all day.  This little sailboat resting in the bay…so peacefully.

This tree had roots that were washed out by many years of storms…made fun for taking pictures.

Love these ladies so much!  After hanging around the campground and going on the boat (those pictures were taken with my phone, I will try to get those posted tomorrow), then we headed for ice cream!  I got a brownie sundae.

When we got back to the campground we had an appointment…with the deer.  We got to play Snow White, and boy did they come out of the woods!!

This poor baby was attached by an alligator…at least he is still alive…but his battle wound looks so bad.

Little man was fascinated...baby girl really did not care too much.

After we talked to the deer for a little while, we headed to the gator pond.  We were in search of the bully that attached the deer…and I think we found them.

We decided the gators did not scare us off too much so we walked through the woods to find some good picture taking spots.  The goal was to get some good pictures of the babies, however they did not have the same plan in mind.  I did the best I could with two ill babies and my zoom lens that I was scared to change.  Now looking back, I see that I have a lot of practice to do with this lens.

After the pictures we headed to the beach to attempt to watch the sunset…the babies didn’t make it to sunset but we tried. 

The water was absolutely beautiful the whole weekend…it honestly looked like a painting.

Little man learned how to put sand in his sister’s hair…this happened all weekend after he realized how mad she got and what a mess it made.

There were these kite things with seats on it…they were interesting and looked fun but I do not know if I would be daring enough to giver her a try.

It was bike week in PCB and I did not realize exactly what that meant.  Basically it is PCB version of Daytona’s bike week and it was PACKED with motorcycles.  Little man thought it was awesome to see all the bikes, but he was not so happy about the loud noise they made.  One of the bikes had a trailer with a dog in it and the dog rode everywhere the owners went.  They said he has been riding with them since he was a few weeks old and he is now three years.  His name was Rusty, he was so sweet.

We also got to play on the play ground…

Gammy wanted to teach little man how to swing…

…and he eventually got it.  He was proud of himself, however after a few short seconds he was “all done”!

WOW, that post was so tiring to write.  I did not realize until looking back and how much we did this weekend…busy busy!!  This coming weekend will be equally busy, but I’m so excited about it!  We had such a great time with Mema and Pepa and cannot wait to go back to the beach…my babies have a better tan than me, we will def have to go back soon!!

 

BTW TGIF!!!!!